Meriwether Milling
New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
IN 1847, WILLIAM HUNTER MERIWETHER, A NATIVE VIRGINIAN AND PLANTATION OWNER, PURCHASED 480 ACRES OF LAND IN THE COMAL SPRINGS AREA FROM MARIA ANTONIO DE VERAMENDI GARZA AND HER HUSBAND, RAFAEL C. GARZA, AND 200 ACRES FROM THE GERMAN EMIGRATION AND RAILROAD COMPANY FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEVELOPING A MILLING INDUSTRY. IN 1847, HE DAMMED THE GEYSER SPRINGS, LOCALLY CALLED LAS FONTANAS, AND USED SLAVE LABOR TO DIG A MILL RACE CANAL FROM THE COMAL SPRINGS TO THE COMAL CREEK. THIS CREATED WATER PRESSURE TO RUN A GRIST MILL, COTTON GIN AND SAWMILL. THE ONLY DOMESTIC STRUCTURE THAT REMAINS ON THE ORIGINAL PROPERTY IS THE SMALL MERIWETHER MILL HOUSE, ACROSS FROM THE MILL POND. IN 1859, MERIWETHER AND HIS WIFE LEFT NEW BRAUNFELS, SELLING THEIR HOLDINGS IN THE COMAL SPRINGS TRACT TO JOSEPH LANDA. THE PURCHASE INCLUDED THE EXISTING BUSINESSES AND WATER RIGHTS. LANDA AND HIS SON, HARRY, EXPANDED THE MILLING OPERATION TO INCLUDE A FLOUR MILL, COTTONSEED OIL COMPLEX, ICE PLANT AND HYDROELECTRIC PLANT. THE LANDA INDUSTRIES CONTINUED TO OPERATE UNTIL THE FAMILY BEGAN TO LIQUIDATE THEIR ASSETS IN THE MID 1920s. IN 1936, AFTER BEING BOUGHT BY THE CITY, MUCH OF THE ORIGINAL MERIWETHER PROPERTY BECAME THE BEAUTIFUL RECREATION AREA KNOWN AS LANDA PARK. THE CANAL HAS PROVIDED HYDROLOGICAL AND HYDROELECTRIC POWER FOR THE EARLY MILL OPERATIONS AS WELL AS ELECTRICAL POWER GENERATING PLANTS. MERIWETHER WAS THE FIRST ENTREPRENEUR TO DEVELOP THE SPRINGS, OPENING UP THE AREA FOR INDUSTRY. HIS WORK COINCIDED WITH THE RAPID, PERMANENT DEVELOPMENT OF NEW BRAUNFELS, EVIDENT IN THE FACT THAT IT BECAME THE FOURTH LARGEST CITY IN TEXAS IN 1850, JUST FIVE YEARS AFTER ITS ESTABLISHMENT. (2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1847 Virginia planter William Hunter Meriwether bought hundreds of acres around the Comal Springs, dammed the geyser springs locally called Las Fontanas, and used enslaved labor to dig a mill race that powered a grist mill, cotton gin, and sawmill. He sold the works to Joseph Landa in 1859, whose family expanded them into flour, cottonseed oil, ice, and hydroelectric enterprises. Much of the original tract later became the city's Landa Park.
Why it matters
It marks the industrial spark that helped New Braunfels grow explosively in its first years — and a reminder that slavery underwrote enterprise even in a heavily German region.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Hunter Meriwether
- · Joseph Landa
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
International & Great Northern Railroad in New Braunfels
New Braunfels, TX
New Braunfels residents lobbied for years to draw a railroad, and by 1880 the International & Great Northern rolled its first trains through a new depot. The line transformed the local economy, opening markets for goods and sparking tourism—Helen Gould, daughter of financier Jay Gould, prompted a spur into what became Landa Park. Successive depots culminated in the 1907 station that now houses the New Braunfels Railroad Museum.
Mill Street Telegraph Station
New Braunfels, TX
In the decades after the telegraph reached the United States, small Texas towns wired themselves into the national grid one line at a time. New Braunfels opened its first station in the 1860s inside the Guadalupe Hotel, where German-speaking schoolteacher August Schmitz tapped out messages; in 1871 the office followed him to his fachwerk (half-timber) house on Mill Street, its mud bricks drawn from Comal Creek. The station shuttled back to the hotel and finally to the railroad depot by 1881, tracing how a frontier town's communications matured.
Plumeyer Bakery Building
New Braunfels, TX
On a New Braunfels corner that had already hosted two drugstores and a bakery, Kathinka Clemens built this brick commercial building in 1913 for A.C. and Helen Plumeyer, who ran their bakery — also called City Bakery — downstairs and lived above it until 1926. Later tenants ranged from a shoe store to physicians' offices, and the structure's Craftsman-influenced design earned it a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark designation in 2005.
Phoenix Saloon
New Braunfels, TX
Built in 1871 and operating under various names before becoming the Phoenix Saloon in 1895, this New Braunfels landmark paired a lively barroom with a back-room café. There proprietor William Gebhardt served a stew seasoned with his own blend of herbs and dried chilies — 'tampico dust,' often credited as the first chili powder — before moving to San Antonio in 1896 to manufacture his Eagle Brand. The saloon, unusually welcoming to ladies, closed under Prohibition in 1918 and reopened as a saloon a century later.